\u201cCustomer aggression has become normalised for far too many people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf your job involves serving customers, it is now almost certain you will face abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n
One in seven respondents faced customer aggression at least weekly. Based on the survey\u2019s estimates, respondents experienced an average of 69 incidents a year.<\/p>\n
The abuse was not confined to face-to-face encounters, with 46% experiencing abuse by phone. <\/p>\n
The survey also showed the toll customer aggression was taking on workers, with 67% reporting stress and 59% anxiety. Three per cent identified suicidal thoughts among the effects they had experienced.<\/p>\n
Almost one-third (27%) of respondents who experienced customer aggression did not report an incident to their employer, with many saying they did not believe reporting was worthwhile.<\/p>\n
When asked what employers could do, 64% ranked customer aggression and de-escalation training as the most effective action.<\/p>\n
Armstrong said the findings were particularly concerning for young people, with customer-facing jobs often providing their first experience of the workforce.<\/p>\n
\u201cOften the abuse is coming from everyday Kiwis. Parents, professionals and regular customers who should know better,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot afford to treat this as an individual workplace issue. This is a national tragedy … We can, and we must, do better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Denva Wren, Woolworths New Zealand head of safety, health and wellbeing, said the findings reinforce what many frontline teams across the country face every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone has the right to feel safe at work and go home safely.<\/p>\n
\u201cActs of violence and aggression are having a real, heavy impact on our people\u2019s mental and physical health, confidence, and safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wren said no single organisation can solve the problem alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy working together on a joint response, we can strengthen prevention, improve support for frontline workers, and ensure respectful behaviour is the expectation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cCustomer aggression has become normalised for far too many people,\u201d she said. \u201cIf your job involves serving customers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9055,1903,2840,65552,682,138,6852,299555,3052,19994,305,8454,111,139,37968,69,1118,3111,4517,1326,1516,8822,8229,18937,13118,14191,102,4576,4478,379,80],"class_list":["post-607873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-9055","tag-abuse","tag-across","tag-aggression","tag-being","tag-business","tag-customer","tag-customerfacing","tag-faced","tag-frontline","tag-have","tag-including","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nine","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-out","tag-past","tag-shop","tag-staff","tag-survey","tag-they","tag-threatened","tag-violence","tag-weapons","tag-with","tag-work","tag-workers","tag-year","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}